Biscuits have been cooking up in Southern kitchens for about as long as anyone can remember. The concept behind them is quite simple. At heart, they are a mix of basic ingredients like flour, salt, baking powder, milk and butter or lard.

Some people drop them on cookie sheets and others roll them out on floured surfaces. And for many people, the “right” way to make biscuits boils down to how their grandmother did it. A great biscuit isn’t just for breakfast – try one for lunch stuffed with meat and cheese or for supper as the perfect tool to sop up gravies and juices.

If you’ve got a hankerin’ for fresh-from-the-oven biscuits, here’s TALK’s list of some the tastiest, flakiest and fluffiest biscuits in Greenville.

Tupelo Honey Cafe

Biscuits are a star in their own right at Tupelo Honey Cafe in downtown Greenville. The restaurant starts every meal with a basket of biscuits, blueberry preserves and honey.

“It’s good flour, that’s the key to a Southern biscuit,” Sonoskus says. “It’s using simple, quality ingredients and don’t over doing it. We make a drop biscuit which keeps it simple and rustic looking.”

His ingredient list is short, just flour, non-fat buttermilk, salt, sugar and butter.

“The key to everything is quality ingredients and fostering friendships and relationships with the people who make your ingredients,” Sonoskus said. “There’s lots of great products out there. You just have to find farmers in your region.”

Sonoskus, who developed Tupelo Honey’s biscuit recipe, says he knew he wanted a biscuit with a crispy top and fluffy center. That’s achieved by using non-fat buttermilk.

At Tupelo Honey, biscuits are baked in a combination oven that cooks with steam and heat simultaneously. To get that same effect at home, Sonoskus suggests adding a pan of water in the oven with your biscuits to help them rise.

“Biscuits are just so great, we use them everywhere,” he says. “They can be sweet and savory. They can be baked and fried. Of course, biscuit sandwiches are fantastic. It’s nice to know that our biscuits will always be free, and we serve them at every meal – it’s a nice way to start up a friendship. We believe that gathering around a table is good for you.”

Tommy’s Country Ham House

Biscuits make up a large portion of the menu at Tommy’s Country Ham House in Greenville. They come served with a variety of options you’d expect – like eggs, bacon, chicken, sausage and country ham – and more unique pairings like cubed steak, pork chops and bologna. Of course, there’s also the option of gravy.

Customers have the choice of regular biscuits or grilled biscuits.

“I’ve never seen the grilled biscuit anywhere else either,” says Tommy Stevenson, who will celebrate 30 years in business this month.

His recipe comes from an old family recipe that calls for White Lily flour, butter-flavored Crisco and buttermilk.

All those biscuits require about 800 pounds of flour and 85 gallons of buttermilk.

“We make them from scratch, all the way, every day,” he said. “I think they’re the best. You can’t get ingredients better than what we use.”

OJs Dinner

Doug Jefferson has been making biscuits for OJs Dinner on Pendleton Street in Greenville for 11 years. He uses the same recipe he grew up watching his father make.

Mornings start early for Jefferson when he comes into the restaurant to mix up the dough made with flour, butter, milk, buttermilk and a little ice water. After letting the mixture sit for about 45 minutes, he rolls the dough out on buttered sheet pans. Each pan fits about 25 biscuits, and he’ll normally do 12 to 14 pans a day.

“When they come out, I take another brush and top it off with a little liquid butter,” Jefferson said.

His biscuits usually run out a few hours before closing time.

“I think our biscuits go with just about everything we have,” he says.

One of their most popular options is the salmon biscuit.

“I hear so much good things about the biscuits,” he says. “People say if it wasn’t for the biscuits they wouldn’t come. Some people get five or six at a time.”

Soby’s

The garlic cheddar biscuits that Soby’s New South Cuisine in downtown Greenville is known for almost never happened.

“When we opened Soby’s we were designing and building and getting the menus ready, and on opening night, one of our servers walked up to the chef and asked what to do about butter for the bread. It hit him like a ton of bricks that we hadn’t even thought about bread,” recalls Rodney Freidank, corporate chef for Table 301, a group of local restaurants that includes Soby’s, The Lazy Goat and Soby’s on the Side.

The chef ran into the kitchen and threw together biscuits using what the kitchen staff had on hand.

“We were just going to use that bread to get through the opening night, but people freaked out about the biscuits,” says Freidank. “People were going nuts for them. In the spur of the moment we threw them together and had no idea they’d be so popular.”

The biscuits are different from most Southern biscuits, which tend to be rolled out and cut, in that they are drop biscuits – meaning they are mixed in a bowl and then dropped on a tray.

“It makes them very light because they’ve hardly been touched,” says Freidank. “There’s garlic and cheese on the inside and then we top them with paprika, garlic powder and just a hint of nutmeg to bring the flavors alive.”

For biscuit fans looking to recreate the Soby’s garlic cheddar biscuits at home, Soby’s on the Side sells a dry mix.